In a Radio Times interview with Holmes - who was once dubbed the king of breakfast television - t he former sports presenter said the Northern Irishman urged him to make the switch.

"Some bloke called Eamonn Holmes rang me up then sat me down for lunch and said, 'Why aren't you doing breakfast television?'.

"I don't know whether you've got a strange power, but about three months after that I had a phone call from somebody saying, 'Things are changing at the BBC - would you be interested?'," Walker told Holmes.

Walker, who previously hosted Afternoon Edition on BBC Radio 5 Live and Football Focus on BBC One, also said that when he first made the switch he could see people questioning his ability to cover serious news stories.

"When I moved, I could see that concern in people's eyes - how's he going to deal with interviewing the prime minister?" he said, adding that he "didn't sleep" the night before covering his first big story - the conclusion of the Hillsborough disaster inquests.

Walker said: "Not because I was worried, but because I knew it was important that I couldn't get anything wrong, not just for myself but for the people I was representing, those survivors of Hillsborough and the families of the 96 who cared so much about the content of what I was going to say."